Best practices across the globe must be adopted, Govt must ensure determined widespread testing to tackle Covid19- AIP.

Srinagar, 12th April(PTK): Emphasizing on the need to carry out widespread testing, Awami Itehad Party today in a statement impressed upon the Government to understand, lockdowns alone are not a solution to the contagion. It would be prudent of the administration to explore and adopt best practices from across the World for pragmatically mitigating and tackling spread of Covid-19. Many countries are even going for pool testing that help determine and handle a chunk of people at one go, thereby decreasing the need for more test kits. Germany is conducting around 350,000 coronavirus tests a week, far more than any other country in European Union and that is one of the reasons for its lowest fatality rate as compared to others. Countries that test widely can isolate infected people, prevent or slow new infections.

Epidemiologists around the world have been stressing on need for early and widespread testing, without which war against Covid-19 cannot be fought. Countries like France, did not have a strategy that centered on testing to map the advance of the virus.

Testing In Italy was plagued by Political squabbling, United Kingdom developed tests but decided not to use them widely, as Singapore and South Korea have done. One must also realize that administration needs to have a swift approach in dealing with the Virus and one must learn from best particles of countries like South Korea, Singapore and Germany. From the beginning, some countries showed greater urgency than others and were more nimble in their response. Australia, Korea and Singapore turned to networks of public and private laboratories to develop tests. Britain was one of the first to develop coronavirus diagnostic kits but made a decision not to test widely.

The government’s strategy initially focused on slowing the contagion rather than stopping it which has turned out to be a colossal mistake. We must act before the window of opportunity to contain the epidemic shuts on us said Party Spokesperson Sheeban Ashai. Even very recently in India, Andaman and Nicobar islands started pool testing for suspected corona virus patients to determine and detect those infected and also at the same time reduce the number of test kits used, in view of the acute shortage of kits across India.